


Vanitas

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Gore, M/M, Self Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the truth isn't good enough</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanitas

born adj.

1\. Brought into life by birth.

2\. Having from birth a particular quality or talent: a born artist.

Rob limits himself to two glasses of champagne. Shame Mike couldn’t do the same. It’s his gallery opening so he can do what he wants, Rob supposes. Still, when he staggers over with a half empty glass (always the pessimist) of champagne in his hand, his other palm open and flat ready to clap Rob on the back, it’s a little awkward.

“Are you having fun, Robbie?”

“Yeah,” Rob says, forcing a smile. “Are you?”

Mike smirks and necks the rest of his champagne, twiddling the flute between his fingers. “No,” he says eventually. “No I’m not. This artwork isn’t anything I’m proud of. I just want recognition.”

"I thought. Just. You told Chester you were so excited.”

“Yeah well, I also told him it was fine for him to date you. Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough.”

Rob had been waiting for Mike to say that for a year. The minute Chester grabbed him after a show and pinned him hard against the wall, kissing him hard, the minute Rob glanced over Chester’s shoulder and saw Mike’s stricken face. Since then, Rob has been waiting for this. But he never heard the words.

One night in Europe Rob found Mike crying alone in the green room of a venue and when he approached him Mike just wrapped his arms around him and pressed their foreheads together and stood there, crying silently.

And then nothing, until now.

Some things, you leave them too long and anything you have to say isn’t good enough. Some things, you leave them long enough and they eat you alive.

“What do you think of the character?” Mike asks, turning to look at the painting beside him where the skeleton has two scantly clad girls draped over him.

“He’s. It’s a good depiction of empty fame, I think.”

“Yeah. This whole thing, that’s what it’s all about – emptiness. Loneliness.”

Rob laughs, says, “Yeah right, as if this dude is lonely.”

Mike doesn’t say anything, narrows his eyes and nods. His expression makes Rob feel like maybe he has it all wrong.

die intr.v. died, dy•ing (d ng), dies

1\. To cease living; become dead; expire.

2\. To cease existing, especially by degrees; fade: The sunlight died in the west.

Rob locks Chester out of the bathroom and steps into the shower, full clothed. The freezing water washes away his tears, flattens his hair, soaks his suit. Doesn’t wash away the blood, though. Or maybe it does, and maybe this is all a Lady-Macbeth-style hallucination.

All he can think is that Mike must have been cutting himself for months before this. The blood smeared on the paintings looked old, like maybe this whole thing had been going on for a lot longer than they thought.

None of them heard from Mike from Christmas until the middle of January when he called Brad to tell him the date and time of the opening. He said it was shirt and tie, bring your own booze. Then hung up. And when Brad tried to call him back the line was dead, and nobody answered the door when Rob went knocking the next day.

And now this.

Rob collapses and sits with his ass over the drain, stopping the water running down. The bathroom is flooding, but all he can see is the blood all over everything and then Mike’s hanging body at the back of the exhibit, with cuts on his face so deep you could see the bone.

Maybe he should have seen it coming. Maybe if he had understood the story behind the paintings more.

Chester is banging on the door by now, the noise echoing through Rob’s head like drums.

Like the sound of Mike’s booted feet slamming into the wall behind him as his body swung back and forth.

Eventually, Chester bursts into the room and turns off the shower, lifting Rob to his feet. There’s nothing either of them can say, so Rob lets Chester pull him close, soaking his own clothes in the process.

“He loved me,” Rob whispers, his voice thick.

“I know. But you can’t blame yourself for this. You didn’t feel the same way. This isn’t all of it anybody’s fault.”

Rob goes to tell Chester that he’s wrong, that maybe he could have learned to love Mike back. That maybe if he’d just done things differently. Maybe if he had lied.

Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough


End file.
